This invention relates to tipplers for rail cars and to receiving and storing installations incorporating such tipplers.
Rail car tipplers are known for the discharge of bulk materials from a rail car into a hopper by tipping the rail car about a longitudinal axis. Such tipplers comprise a rotary structure on which the rail car is held as it is inverted to empty its contents. The structure has transverse frames of arcuate or circular form through which it is mounted on rollers, and clamping means that keep the rail car firmly in place as it tips with the rotation of the structure on the rollers.
When the transverse frames are in the form of rings the hopper into which the car contents are tipped must be disposed completely below the level of the tippler, which can require a great deal of expense in excavation and the provision of foundations. The charging means that brings each rail car onto the tippler platform must be a vehicle that can be driven on and off the platform, usually between the rails of the track, which introduces further complications and also means that the cars can be moved only slowly so that the cycle time is increased. Furthermore, it is not possible to provide a static weighbridge for rail cars on the tippler so it becomes difficult and complicated to get reliable weight data.
To avoid such problems as these, open-sided tipplers have been constructed having arcuate transverse frames which allow the use of a side-arm charger running on a track outside the tippler but require a substantially heavier structure to provide the necessary strength and they are therefore larger and more expensive to produce. One known form of open-sided tippler is substantially little mor than the modification of the first described form of tippler in which the transverse rings of the structure are open-ended and so it shares the other disadvantages of that first form of tippler. Another form of open-sided tippler comprises a pair of opposite end plates between which the hopper is situated to one side of the tippler, the end plates being connected together by a first beam against which the side of a rail car rests as it is being tipped, and a further beam on which a series of transverse top clamping beams are pivotally supported to hold the rail car in place when it is inverted. The two end plates also carry toothed racks which are both engaged by the rotary drive means to synchonize the movement of the end frames as the rail car is tipped.
This form of tippler can employ a side-arm charger, and the hopper need not be placed completely below the tippler structure, but the arrangement has a number of disadvantages, however. The tippler structure must be larger and heavier, so that its constructional costs are greater. In addition, the re-positioning of the hopper results in the rail cars being lifted a considerable distance through an arcuate path and their weight must be at least partly balanced by ballast, both these factors requiring larger driving forces, with further constructional and operating costs.
An object of the present invention is to provide an open-sided rail car tippler in which these disadvantages are at least partly avoided.